He nearly met a grizzly end. But the elderly Russian shepherd who was thrown off a cliff by a bear actually lived to tell the tale.
Last week, Yusuf Alchagirov, 80, encountered a bear in a raspberry field in Kabardino-Balkaria -- a sparsely populated, majority Muslim republic in southern Russia's Caucasus region -- and soon found himself in a fight, reports Russian news agency Ria Novosti.
Alchagirov kicked, headbutted and tried to stab the bear, but he was soon thrown off a cliff by the wild animal, per Ria Novosti.
Although he sustained four broken ribs, bite marks and bruises, Alchagirov was released from the hospital after just a few days, The Guardian notes.
It was unclear what kind of bear attacked him or what became of the bear.
But it's not just Russians who have the gall to get in fistfights with large woodland creatures. This past spring, a birdwatcher in Alaska fought off an aggressive brown bear in order to protect his family, even going so far as to punch the animal in the face. In 2010, a man in central Washington lost an eye in a wrestling match with a black bear that attacked him while he was walking his dogs.
Still, we haven't seen any American octogenarians beat up any bears lately, so hats off to Alchagirov.